I came home last night after watching Cloverfield and went on a cleaning/organizing spree that started with the dishes, then proceeded to the kitchen, and ended with my staying up all night going through all my finances since I got here. The picture below is just a few receipts from my frequent grocery runs to C1000, one of the three supermarkets in my area.

I also realized that I could also keep track of the cashiers’ names and started a tally of who has served me the most. (Hallo Seborah.) Cindy and Jeanne are tied for second. I started trying to diversify my cashier when I was going there more than three times a week.

And now I can also start keeping rough track of how much I’m spending on what. Unfortunately I am missing some relevant information, so to reconcile my cash expenses I have a slush expense called “boozin’,” because in the absolute worst case scenario I would have spent all the rest on going out. (Slightly unrealistic, but seeing it in my statement will be a nice reminder.)

I also caved and paid for a flickr account so I can show more pictures in a pretty fashion that isn’t facebook-dependent. Like watching a baby learn to walk, maybe you’ll see some more sophisticated photo management out of me in the future.

I uploaded other photos from the Donald Norman excursion (it was held in the Design Huis of Eindhoven, so there were some exhibits to see), and I also put up pictures from my Domestic Appliances inspirational dinner last Wednesday after a product imaging workshop with Philips.

At this phase of the class, we are developing individual concepts based on the research we did as a group in the first quarter. To test out and learn more about some of our concepts, my group held a long-due inspirational dinner. Ivo (glasses) is making a tofu squeezer and marinater, Elliot (plaid shirt) is interested in making steaming more accessible, and Suyanto (last guy) is interested in increasing nutritional knowledge and balanced eating. We kind of failed to steam anything, but we did make tofu, sushi, noodles, green beans, and ice cream with fruit chunks and pineapple glaze.

Real quick before I head out to dinner, I went to Eindhoven today with Caroline (and ran into Sverre, Silje, and Gøril) to see a talk by Donald Norman. He wrote the books that are popular with designers such as “The Design of Everyday Things” and “Emotional Design: Why We Love (and Hate) Everyday Things.”

I brought my books for the train ride, in case I wanted to review them or ask him about anything in particular. (I ended up not.) Or if anyone else would want to read some of his books. (My friends didn’t either.) However, several people came up with the brilliant idea of having him sign my books. (How novel! No pun intended.)

Either way, I tried to keep it short but he noticed my American accent, I mentioned that they referred to his books in some courses at MIT, and he was like “Oh yeah, I went there too, I was Course 6.”

And actually, I knew that. Dammit! I had read that at one point and thought, “Oh cool,” but didn’t bother to remember it since I didn’t think I would actually ever meet him.

Regardless, he agreed to look suspicious in a picture with me, during which he said, “You seem like you should belong to the Media Lab,” and I think overall it was a win.

We went to Dutch Design Week (yes, part 2 for me) and also to Amsterdam for Sungyon’s birthday. (Many thanks to Marlous for letting us crash at her place.)

Design Week was less interesting this time than I thought it would be. I may have needed to know more about the things that were there, but it wasn’t as inspiring as I had hoped… There are some photos up on Flickr anyway. Speaking of which, it only shows 200 of my photos at a time, so until I get suckered into paying, seeing some of my older photos may not work.

And since I think my most loyal reader of my blog is Mom (hi Mom!), I’m linking to the slideshow so it’ll be easier for her to look at everything.

I went to Eindhoven yesterday to check out some Dutch Design Week exhibits. I will be back again later this week to see the exhibition hall, but there were several stores and galleries around town that were taking part in it.

Later I went to Rotterdam with Robin to see a Teitur concert, of which there are no photos, but the music was nice and the venue was cozy.